Daniel Ricciardo, RB, Singapore, 2024

Formula 1 axing bonus point for fastest lap five years after introducing it

Formula 1

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Formula 1 is scrapping the bonus point for fastest lap it introduced with much fanfare just five years ago.

The bonus point was originally awarded in the fifties, then dropped. F1 reintroduced in 2019, claiming it would “improve the show whilst maintaining the integrity of our sport.”

However the FIA confirmed today the World Motor Sport Council has agreed to drop the rule. Although a statement issued by the sport’s governing body appeared to suggest the change will happen this year, an FIA spokesperson confirmed to RaceFans the rule will not change until 2025.

The announcement comes after suspicions were raised over Daniel Ricciardo’s bid for fastest lap during the last round of the championship.

Championship leader Max Verstappen’s closest rival Lando Norris held the fastest lap and bonus point as the race entered its final laps. Ricciardo, driving for Red Bull’s second team RB, was running 18th and not eligible to score the bonus point, but was summoned into the pits by his team at the end of the race to fit a fresh set of soft tyres.

Ricciardo duly set the fastest lap, and despite not being able to claim point for himself, deprived Norris of it. This prompted claims Red Bull had used their second team to assist Verstappen in his championship fight. RB claimed Ricciardo was given the opportunity to set the fastest lap in what turned out to be his penultimate lap with the team, though his radio messages indicated he never requested it.

Ross Brawn, who oversaw the push to introduce the rule when he was F1 managing director, admitted at the time the rule could cause “controversial” scenarios in a championship fight.

A poll conducted by RaceFans last month found a majority of readers wanted F1 to drop the rule.

In another change for next season, the number of practice sessions given over to junior drivers will double. Teams must run junior drivers in each of their two cars once under the current rules.

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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52 comments on “Formula 1 axing bonus point for fastest lap five years after introducing it”

  1. Good riddance.

    1. Coventry Climax
      17th October 2024, 18:37

      Ha, exactly my words.
      Intended to reply with them to find you’d beaten me to it.

    2. Indeed. Most of the time it is only noticed when the race is so dull at some point it is the only thing happening on-track, emphasizing the boredom.

      Entirely forgettable, I’m not even sure this curiosity had the slightest impact in any ranking since its introduction.

    3. Whilst I am happy with the outcome it is kind of incident management rather than having a vision.. We must prepare for a fickle playmaker equal to the delusion of the day on the stock exchange floor. After all this is all about shareholder value.

  2. Well, that’s $158,000+ less per year the FIA will be charging for entry fees.

  3. HELL YES!

  4. Sprint races next please.

    1. Sprint races next please.

      That’s probably the best idea I’ve heard in this decade, as such it will be rejected out of hand by the FIA

    2. +1, one more in agreement here

    3. Couldn’t agree more with getting rid of those awful things.

  5. Effectively an admission that FIA recognizes the collusion between Red Bull’s senior and junior teams by depriving Norris of 1 point.

    1. And before the usual apologists arrive to say it was ‘just one point’, that one point mattered enough for the junior squad to get Ricciardo to go after the fastest lap andfor Horner and Max to celebrate the fact he took a point of Norris live on the radio. A question: what happens if there’s a repeat or multiple repeats in the following six races?

      1. He did it because it was his last race in F1 not because of Verstappen.

        1. He did it because it was his last race in F1 not because of Verstappen

          Yeah, and there are pixies and faeries in opposite corners of the end of my garden.

        2. @f1mre Ricciardo himself said that he went for the fastest lap with the works Red Bull team in mind, indicating that even Ricciardo doesn’t back the argument that you are putting forward.

        3. Indeed, and I don’t see how this will change ricciardo’s actions: if a driver is at his last race and out of the points, he might still want to add a fastest lap to his collection like ricciardo did, it just won’t take points off one of the championship contenders.

    2. Effectively an admission that FIA recognizes the collusion between Red Bull’s senior and junior teams by depriving Norris of 1 point.

      It does highlight an action the FIA should have taken, rule out “junior” “senior” team ownership, or explicitly open it up to all team owners.

      1. Sure enough, scrapping the point for fastest lap was easier than tackling the sister team problem !

  6. I don’t think too many people will shed a tear over the loss of the fastest lap point. Also, probably a good thing to increase number of practice sessions for junior drivers, gives them more of an opportunity to showcase themselves ahead of the incumbents.

  7. Finally.

    Over the season break, hope you can run an article on some quirky stats regarding this point. Who scored most, which position’s finisher scored most. How many were scored on the last lap, how many earlier in the race, etc.

  8. I thought it maintained the integrity of the sport without improving the show. Or was it the other way round?

  9. I’m evidently in the minority but I’d rather they kept it, and just opened it up outside the top 10. That one point could be valuable to teams lower down taking a risk on a soft tyre run at the end beyond the value for the championship contenders. I also rather like the driver that got the fastest lap of the race stat to actually grant something beyond just the stat. Getting rid of it now seems more directly in answer to Norris being deprived of one point, which seems silly given they must have known teams, or drivers, could use it tactically to deprive others – such is the nature of a ‘won’ point.

    1. Points are valuable exactly because they are sparse and hardly earned. Awarding them for being in a lucky position to pit in and put on a new tires is… silly. I’d rather see a roulette after the race, where they draw a random, lucky winner of a point. It makes as much sense as this thing, but it doesn’t affect the race in any negative ways. And people who like turning F1 into mockery get a few minutes of dedicated content.
      I say, if you can’t think of a new thing that makes sense, then just don’t make a random change for the sake of “doing your job.”

    2. There’s a good reason it was only for the top 10. Opening it up to teams outside the top 10 would cause dangerous carnage in the final few laps that would end up altering results. Half the field would be peeling off into the pits, bolting on soft tyres, going back out, trundling around for a lap or 2 trying to find a clean air gap on the track for the run, charge the battery up and getting the tyres in the sweet spot for their 1 lap banzai, whilst the other 10 cars fighting for points, podiums and wins need to navigate them all like a slalom, and vice versa, fast backmarkers trying to get the point on quali type runs would be tripping over the leaders on old tyres trying to unlap themselves.

      The ONLY way the point for fastest lap being open to the entire field MIGHT work would be in an era such as the early 2000’s where tyres were designed to last the whole race and only allowed to be changed for failures, but even that doesn’t solve the issue of drivers with nothing to lose just causing a mess trying to charge the battery and find clean air for the run.

    3. @rocketpanda – I am with you on this – I fully believe it is a retrograde step. The proper fix would have been to open the point up to the whole field rather than the top 10. I like the thought of the backmarkers trying for a glory run at the end of the race, more spectacle for the fans – what could be wrong with that.

      1. The best solution would have been to allocate points for race positions all the way down to 20th/last place. And then keep the fastest lap point, and open it up to more than the top 10 finishers – instead allowing it to be scored by everyone except the last classified finisher. Solved.

        The only drivers in the field to pit at the end would have needed to pull out an entire pit stop’s gap to the position behind. Admitedly, right now that would always be Perez in 8th place, but maybe they’ll fire him soon.

  10. To be honest it does not make much of a difference and will not be missed. It was a flawed concept to reward only drivers in the top 10 and it definitely does not add add value when a car/driver is dominant. I would rather hope that
    the idea of a once a year non-championship grand prix featuring only rookies or young drivers becomes a reality.

    1. @pinakghosh The limiting to the top 10 was done in part because of something that happened in Formula E which turned the championship deciding final race into a complete farce.

      The 2 title rivals took each other off at the start & then the rest of the race was focussed on them laps down doing there own private time trial to try & get the fast lap point rather than the actual racing that was going on. It was something that was universally criticised so they changed it to only those in the top 10 for the following year.

      Also why give teams/drivers who weren’t fast enough to actually score points the opportunity to score a point which in most situations wouldn’t have been earned on merit?

      Not to mention how it would just turn the end of races into a bit of a joke with probably loads of cars outside the top 10 pitting with 1-3 laps left all trying to get the fastest lap despite none of them having a fast enough car to be fast on merit. Not to mention how that would just take the focus off what was going on up front which if far more important to watch.

      Whole thing was just a silly thing to introduce given how fastest lap is not & never was a stat worthy of a point as it’s always been a pretty meaningless stat, Something pitting with 2 laps left for fresh softs renders even more meaningless.

      1. @roger-ayles Agree with this. The worst option for how to change the rule would have been to expand it to all runners, for the reasons you mentioned. I personally didn’t mind the FL point that much, but I agree that it wasn’t really awarded on merit very often, usually just on circumstances, so certainly won’t miss it either.

  11. @rocketpanda Opening it upto beyond the top 10 would just turn it into an undeserved point for those who aren’t fast enough to actually get into the points.

    It would have also opened up the possibility of something like that farce that happened in Formula E one year where the 2 title contenders took each other out at the start and then despite been laps down rejoin to take part in what was basically a 2 car time trial that took the focus off the cars that were actually racing for the win/podium/points.
    That race is the reason Formula E subsequently limited the fast lap point only to the top 10 and why F1 did the same when they introduced it.

    End of the day it was a silly thing that awarded a point for something that didn’t deserve to reward a point given how completely irrelevant a stat it is. When you can just pit with a lap or 2 to go & get the point by default then it’s just not something worth a potentially championship affecting point.

    Should never have been introduced to begin with so glad it’s gone!

  12. Good change! The point for a fastest lap rewards something that was never the objective of Grand Prix racing.

    Fastest laps, like quickest pitstops, most overtakes, least track limit infringements or whatever else can be ‘measured’ but is of no intrinsic meaning, are mere statistical quirks.

    1. Fastest lap was awarded a point in F1 GP races between 1950 and 1959.
      So it has been a little bit of an objective during those years.
      But that was long ago.
      F1 is very different today and the fastest lap point seemed more of a gimmick. I agree with your point of FL being one statistical quirk among many others.

      1. Was it? I didn’t know, thanks!

        I wonder why they decided to get rid of it back then.

        1. Because of all the controversy over that race where Fangio took over Moss’s car, set the fastest lap with it and then swapped back.

          (Not really, but can you imagine?)

  13. It’s certainly not worked out how F1 wanted. It’s usually taken by the driver in sixth who can make a free pitstop. Bit poor really. The Singapore one was in bad taste too really

  14. Just because Lando gets stolen the FLAP point in the last race, it gets removed altogether despite working adequately well most of the time, not to mention Lando isn’t even the first driver to lose a FLAP point because of rival tactics as the same thing already happened in 2021 in the British & Mexico City GPs, for example, so if FIA were ever going to drop the bonus point again, they should’ve done so after that season rather than belatedly.
    Oh well, barely a loss as a whole & at least people don’t need to consider anything extra in points permutations with the gaps between any given two positions always the same like most recently in 2018.
    As for doubling the minimum practice session amount requirement per garage side, I’m indifferent & don’t see this as a huge benefit for anyone, although neither is it harmful.

    1. Btw, I forgot to add that the image choice, i.e., driver-circuit combo, for this article is perfectly fitting, even if it’s from FP3 rather than the race.

      1. “gets stolen” ???

        Sheesh…

        1. Well, effectively.

    2. It comes across quite clumsy and biased. Anything to level the fight for the championship. F1 these days is hard to watch. It is so blatantly clear and out in the open that Liberty & FIA co operate to maximise viewers and revenue. It has very little to do with sports these days. Liberty will continue this until F1 is just entertainment. In 10 years we’ll have a different celebrity run the safety car every weekend, sprinklers, fan boost, clowns crossing the track randomly and one car participating with someone random, selected from a contest.

  15. And people thought it was just a goodbye gift for Ricciardo.
    It was so blatantly obvious that rather than suspect Red Bull the day they do it again (and they would, obviously) it was easier to axe this thing for good.

    Good call.

  16. Halle-frickin’-lujah! Keep axing. Sprint races would be a logical next move.

  17. Doesn’t work with the current tyres, you basically get a bonus point if you can fit fresh tyres near the end without losing any places.

    1. Doesn’t work with the current tyres,

      That comment could be applied to large parts of F1 right now.

  18. Unimpressed by this decision, but not a big loss either, I’d have preferred to extend it to all 20 positions, and yes, I read what you said about the formula E episode, but if anything it seems interesting to have something like that, or cars outside the points mass-pitting in the last few laps.

  19. The problem with Singapore was that you have a team with four cars, not the fastest lap point. I don’t mind either way with the point but shouldn’t the actual issue be addressed somehow?

  20. someone or something
    17th October 2024, 22:24

    A surprise, to be sure, but a welcome one.

  21. I was watching the race and looking at the gap Perez had. Was wondering if they’d take him in for the point anyway, but then they might lose the one for 10th. I then saw that Ricciardo could easily do it, but didn’t expect they’d have the neck to try it.

    Not against the rules; it won’t be a problem any more.

  22. My take for fastest lap records: I am satisfied with end of season special trophy awarded by a sponsor to a driver having the most fastest lap of the season. this will recognize a driver skill vs his team mate. (having similar machinery) awards for top 3 is good

  23. Good.
    I wouldn’t have minded it so much if it had applied to all the grid, giving the struggling teams at the back something to try for.
    But overall I’d rather it was consigned to the bin like this.

Comments are closed.